The Chinese character for Dao (道) consists of two elements: one is “a head” and the other “to run”; together the word is taken to mean “on which someone goes, a path or road,” and has extended meanings such as, “method, norm, and principle.” These various connotations are well summed up in the English term “the Way.” While in Confucianism Dao (儒家之道) is employed to signify the way of heaven or humans, in Laozi (老子 ca. 6th B.C.) Zhuangzi (莊子 ca. 4th B.C.), Dao acquires a metaphysical meaning. Dao is the ultimate reality as well as the first principle underlying form, substance, being and change.

In the Neo-Platonists, Philo of Alexandria (ca. 25 B.C.—A.D.25) proposed the Logos theory, which stands at the center of his entire system of thought. I perceive a striking affinity between Laozi’s Dao and Philo’s Logos. It is commonly agreed that, in spite of the use of stoic terminology, Philo’s thought is strongly influenced by Middle Platonism, which I believe, provides a terrain for comparison between the two philosophers from east and west.